1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting device for emitting a flash of light, and more particularly to a light emitting device that is attached to an image pickup apparatus, such as a digital camera or a digital video camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent flash devices tend to be increased in circuit scale and hence also increased in space occupied by a circuit board, due to a demand for multifunctionality. On the other hand, it is becoming an important challenge to space-efficiently arrange electrical components and the circuit board, due to a demand for size reduction.
Under such circumstances, there has been proposed a technique which makes it possible to space-efficiently arrange electrical components without producing useless space within the device body of a flash device (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-181552).
As shown in FIG. 13, the flash device has the device body 101 in which cylindrical electrical components 176 and 177 are arranged in a space defined by a circuit board 131, a battery case 132, and a main capacitor 138.
The cylindrical electrical components 176 and 177 are disposed along respective cutouts 131a and 131b formed in the circuit board 131, which makes it possible to space-efficiently arrange the electrical components to thereby reduce the size of the flash device.
By the way, in a flash device, due to a demand for further size reduction and multifunctionality, space for a battery housing part the size of which is difficult to be reduced is relatively increased, but due to an increase in the number of electrical components and components of a circuit board for multifunctionality, space for housing these components becomes very small. For this reason, in accordance with reduction of the size of the flash device, noise from a light emission section is apt to enter the communication line of a control IC, causing a communication error. The communication error is apt to lead to e.g. a malfunction in which an appropriate amount of light cannot be emitted.
Further, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-181552, it is possible to reduce the size of a flash device, but the distance between a light emission section for emitting flash light and a circuit board on which a control IC is mounted is reduced. For this reason, the control IC is likely to be affected by noise from the light emission section during flash light emission, which is apt to cause a malfunction in which an appropriate amount of light cannot be emitted.
Furthermore, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-181552, when further multifunctionality of a flash device is to be realized, it is required to enlarge the scale of part for having circuits mounted thereon. Further, the number of circuit boards is increased, and accordingly, it is required to newly provide dedicated connection members, such as lead wires, wire harnesses, and relay flexible boards, for connection between the circuit boards. For this reason, in accordance with the further multifunctionality of the flash device, space for housing the circuit boards and the dedicated connection members is increased, which causes an increase in the size of the flash device, and the additional provision of the dedicated connection members causes an increase in the manufacturing costs of the flash device.